Oxfordbookstore.com announces online talent search

NEW DELHI: Oxfordbookstore.com, an Indian online bookstore has

announced a talent search competition by inviting budding writers from across

the country to send in the first chapter of the book that they might have been

planning to write. A panel of eminent judges consisting of Amitav Ghosh, Shobha

Dé, Vikram A. Chandra, Krishna Sen, and Samik Bandopadhyay will choose the

three best first chapters from among the valid entries and the winning chapters

will be published on the oxfordbookstore.com site.

The contest starts on March 14 and the deadline for accepting entries of the

first chapter is April 15. The panel of judges will announce the best three

entries on April 30 and the complete book by the three authors has to submitted

by August 31. On September 15, the judges will declare the winner and on October

1 the book will be published on the site. The users don’t have to pay for

reading the book on the net. The book can also be published in hard copy also.

The word limit for the novel is 30,000 words and for the first chapter is 2,500

words.

This is the first time that such a contest involving prize money is taking

place in India. The three best first chapters, chosen by the panel of eminent

judges, will be awarded cash prizes of Rs 5,000, Rs 3,000 and Rs 2,000

respectively. The winning chapters will be published on the oxfordbookstore.com

site and the best book will be awarded a cash prize of Rs. 25,000 and the

runners-up will receive consolation prizes of Rs 7000 and Rs 5000.

Speaking on the occasion Sanjeev Mehra, COO, oxfordbookstore.com said that

through this contest, we are using net as an enabler for unearthing hidden

talents in writing in India. It will be an yearly event and if possible in

future it can be launched in other Indian languages other than English.

Oxford bookstore is an integrated bookstore with a physical model supporting

the virtual one. Their site oxfordbookstore.com was also officially launched in

Delhi. The site comprises of about 5,60,000 books divided into 40 categories,

10,000 music titles divided into 10 categories and various gift items. There are

seven payment options on the site and payment for foreign titles can be made in

Indian Rupees.

Dibyendu Chakraborty, Brand Manager, Oxfordbookstore.com said that the total

investment on the site in the first year is expected to be Rs 7 crore. The back

end integration of the site is being done by Chennai based Cognizant Technology

solutions. The site is averaging 15 orders a day.

Oxfordbookstore.com is an e-commerce venture of the Apeejay Surrendra Group.

All the investment in the site has been done in-house.